1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to position or location estimations of mobile communication devices and, more particularly, to selective crowdsourcing for multi-level positioning for use in or with mobile communication devices.
2. Information
Mobile communication devices, such as, for example, cellular telephones, portable navigation units, laptop computers, personal digital assistants, or the like are becoming more common every day. Certain mobile communication devices, such as, for example, location-aware cellular telephones, smart telephones, or the like may assist users in estimating their geographic locations by providing positioning assistance data obtained or gathered from various systems. For example, in some instances, certain mobile communication devices may obtain an estimate of their geographic location or so-called “position fix” by acquiring wireless signals from a satellite positioning system (SPS), such as the global positioning system (GPS) or other like Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), cellular base station, etc. via a cellular telephone or other wireless communications network. Acquired wireless signals may, for example, be processed by or at a mobile communication device, and its location may be estimated using known techniques, such as Advanced Forward Link Trilateration (AFLT), Observed Time Difference of Arrival (OTDOA), base station identification, or the like.
In an indoor environment, mobile communication devices may be unable to reliably receive or acquire satellite or like wireless signals to facilitate and/or support one or more position estimation techniques. For example, signals from an SPS or other wireless transmitters may be attenuated or otherwise affected in some manner (e.g., insufficient, weak, fragmentary, etc.), which may at least partially preclude their use for position estimations. At times, a mobile communication device may obtain a position fix by measuring ranges to three or more terrestrial wireless transmitter devices, such as access points, for example, positioned at known locations. Ranges may be measured, for example, by obtaining a Media Access Control identifier (MAC ID) address from wireless signals received from suitable access points and measuring one or more characteristics of received signals, such as signal strength, round trip delay, or the like. In some instances, an indoor location of a mobile communication device may be estimated via radio heat map signature matching, for example, in which current characteristics of wireless signals, such as signal strength, round trip delay, or the like received from access points at the device are compared with expected or previously measured signal characteristics stored as heat map values in a database.
At times, applicable data, such as to facilitate and/or support location estimates of mobile communication devices via radio heat map signature matching, OTDOA, triangulation, etc. may be collected using one or more crowdsourcing approaches. Crowdsourced data may, for example, be accumulated and/or stored in a suitable database, which may be associated with a location-based service (LBS), wireless communications service provider, or some other entity. A database may comprise, for example, locations (e.g., latitude, longitude, etc. coordinates, etc.), identifies (unique identification numbers, etc.), etc. of wireless transmitters, expected characteristics of wireless signals for a particular area, or the like. Crowdsourced data may, for example, be provided to mobile communication devices in positioning assistance messages to help or assist with localization. In some instances, however, a crowdsourcing process may involve continual and/or indiscriminate collection and/or reporting of data that may be less than useful, such as for subsequent positioning, database updating, etc. This may also significantly tax available resources, such as bandwidth in wireless communication links, memory space, battery life, etc. of mobile communication devices, etc., may increase cellular data usage, associated costs or data charges, or the like.